The US dollar has staged a huge rally over the past several
months, and this is causing some issues for global corporations.
Many are reporting "FX headwinds," a jargony way to say that
foreign exchange rates are hurting results. The basic outline
here is if, say, the euro falls in value against the US dollar,
sales made in Europe are worth less when converted back to US
dollars by Apple, which is a US-based company.

During Apple's previous earnings, CEO
Tim Cook said, "Our results would have been even stronger,
absent fierce foreign exchange volatility." Apple's CFO Luca
Maestri said revenue growth would have been 4% higher in the
holiday quarter had currency not affected results.

If Munster is right on the FX headwinds, then Apple's revenue
will be $54 billion, which is less than the $56 billion expected.

So that will lead to lots of people saying Apple whiffed on
earnings. But if it's because of foreign exchange rates, then
Apple didn't miss. Of course you could argue that the company
should be hedging against this risk, but that seems a tad
nitpicky. It's tough to predict currency swings.

The key number to watch will be iPhone unit sales, which will not
be affected by FX issues. Analysts are expecting 58.1 million
units sold during the quarter. If Apple is short of that number,
then it will have whiffed.